Letter from Megaw to Schaeffer on the various consignments sent from Cyprus to ParisArthur Hubert Stanley Megaw

Tel. No. Our Ref: 36/36/4 Your Ref.:

Figure: Government of Cyprus crest

DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES NICOSIA 18th December, 1957

Dear Professor Schaeffer,

Thank you for your letter of 8th December,1957, posted in Athens and enclosing your official letter of the same date, to which I am replying separately.

Your two letters of 10th December enclosed in one to Kuss arrived on the morning of the day he left. By then the cases of the second consignment had been shut and sealed. But we arranged for Kuss to take in his personal luggage the following from among the 1957 small finds, which you asked on loan: 4,6,30,36,99,104,113,114,161. [handwritten: 108 generally used]

For these he signed the usual undertaking of which he took a copy for you. The remaining items in your list were omitted because Kuss said he had already drawn them and there was a limit to what he could take. If you do need these items also we can send them by post.

Kuss also has a copy for you of [handwritten: [illegible]] undertaking he signed for the loan items included in the main second consignment (case XI), namely the Mycenaean cup-bearer vase and 7 other finds from your excavations which we assigned to the Cyprus Museum together with 10 undivided and un-numbered items from the 1957 campaign for analysis. Through an oversight we omitted to include in this loan consignment the votive bronze ingots from your undivided finds of 1946-56. These too could be sent by post.

Case X contains your Iron Age vases and those from the Iskender cemetery at Ktima, which are being presented by the Cyprus Government to the Louvre, in consideration of the losses which Bérard consignment suffered and the probable cause of them. The latter are in most cases the actual vases which Bérard had himself selected as appropriate replacements.

Your Enkomi finds are in cases 1-IX.

I can say that this consignment was as well packed as any which has ever been packed in the Cyprus Museum. We have taken the same precaution against opening by the Security Control of the port, as we did in regard to what you took with you. I hope it arrives in good order. Much will depend on the handling it receives at Marseilles and you may wish to arrange for it to have special attention there, as we are trying to secure for it at Famagusta. It is being shipped on the "Rovigo" which is due to sail on 20th December.

Those of our staff who undertook the packing under Kuss's supervision were working during official time and they can not therefore accept any reward apart from their salary. If their work proves to have been well done they would appreciate a word of thanks from you. They are Lazarus Nicolaou, George Markou and Andreas Georghiou.

Prof. C.F.A. Schaeffer, M.A., D. Litt., Le Castel Blanc, 14 Rue Turgot, St. Germain-en-Laye (S.et O.) France.